Day: June 21, 2007

Boston Talk Show Host Paul Sullivan Quits

Six months ago, longtime WBZ-Boston morning drive-time radio announcer Gary Lapierre retired. At that time it was known that WBZ evening talk show host Paul Sullivan wouldn’t be holding court forever, having had three surgeries for brain cancer that was diagnosed in December 2004.

Paul Sullivan - WBZ AM1030 BostonSullivan recently underwent a fourth operation, and today he announced that he’s quitting his show, in the time slot that was vacated by the death of David Brudnoy, also in December 2004. Previously, he had followed Brudnoy. In a letter released today, Sullivan said, “The toll my surgeries and treatments have taken on me makes it unlikely that I will ever have the energy to return to a four-hour daily talk radio program.”

Here’s ten minutes of audio from a Paul Sullivan show last February to give you an idea of his style. The topic was Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth, which I’ve covered here previously.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUN07/PaulSullivanOnGore.mp3]

Sullivan’s guest was from a political action committee that claimed Al Gore uses 20 times the amount of energy at his house as the average American home. [Link] The actual percentage is somewhat less than that [Link], but Sullivan ran with the number that was given to him by his guest.

At one time I’d have given Sullivan the benefit of the doubt and said he didn’t want to quibble with the details, because he wanted to focus on Gore’s apparent hypocrisy. But I’ve heard Sullivan over the years often enough to know that sometimes he doesn’t have enough facts at his fingertips.

Tonight, Sullivan was a caller to his own show, and I think that’s both funny and sad. Here’s a 10-minute clip. Note: The audio stream cuts out for a few moments in the middle.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JUN07/PaulSullivanWBZ.mp3]

In the radio biz, Paul is a former minor league guy who made it to the major leagues and held his own. He’s a writer for The Lowell Sun, a small city newspaper, and while he’s not as well-read as Brudnoy the college professor was, Sullivan is smart and quick, with plenty of fight, and a good sense of humor to boot. It’s a real shame that Sullivan fell ill right when he was hitting his stride.

Brutal Bluto

A couple of posts ago I asserted that some of the Popeye cartoons from the 40’s and 50’s seem to have a sadistic bent. One thing I’ve noticed they have in common is they were directed by Max Fleischer’s son-in-law, Seymour Kneitel. Here’s another example of sadistic brutality that I recall from childhood.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/JUN07/PopeyeSuperman.flv 400 300]

“She-Sick Sailors” is from 1944, the year after the last Superman cartoon had been produced by the Fleischer/Famous studio. Note how the Superman “S” emblem is quickly dropped to simplify the animation work. The cartoon features a scene where Bluto challenges Popeye to shoot him with a machine gun, and to let him shoot Popeye in return. When I was a kid I was really bothered by this sequence, and now I realize why.

Unlike the black & white Fleischer cartoons, Bluto was no longer Popeye’s rival for Olive. Instead, he had become a truly evil villain. He intended to cut Popeye to ribbons with the machine gun, then assault and murder Olive. Unreal cartoon violence this isn’t. Perhaps it was an attempt at returning to the Perils of Pauline of the silent movie days, but I now think there’s more psychology behind these flashes of cruelty than just an interest in creating suspense and to entertain.